R&D Towards a Compact Electron Cyclotron Resonance Accelerator*

A novel accelerator, the electron Cyclotron Resonance Accelerator (eCRA) [1], is under development.  It is a highly compact and efficient design for producing high power electron and x-ray beams for medical, research, sterilization, and national security applications, so as to replace radioactive materials. With a compact robust room-temperature single-cell RF cavity as the accelerator structure, eCRA can produce a continuous unbunched ampere-class high current output with a self-scanning accelerated energetic e-beam, obviating the need for a separate beam scanner. Numerical simulations including input beam matching and space charge effects have been carried out. The status of eCRA engineering design efforts will be reported.